At least half a dozen are places like Urban Vancouver where my feed gets distributed including my own subscriptions to Feedburner and FeedBlitz to make sure everything is working. That means 48 subscribers are real people.

From conversations in real life and online, I know that at least two regular readers include Rebecca and Kiera and my own records keep track of who is linking to me

Many pundits say that a blog is a conversation and sometimes I’m not very conversational. I don’t like re-inventing the wheel either, so despite the interest I have for composting and urban sustainability, I don’t blog news about this unless I feel it affects me or my community directly. I commend people who do blog about their passion and expertise.

Here’s the deal: if I’m on your blogroll, I’ll add you to mine. How to let me know? Leave a comment to this post. Simple. If you want to be private about it, that’s okay. Send me an email bokashiman@gmail.com

And there’s more! For every person who comments on this post between now and August 10, 2008 I will donate $1.00 to City Farmer – Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture. Need a topic to comment on? Wish me a Happy Birthday!:-) Letting me know how long you have been reading my blog and why you like it would be good and don’t forget to include a link.

Hi!
Happy birthday!
I suppose I’m one of the fifty :). Found you some time ago when I was trying to find out more about bokashi. Since I live in Europe I didn’t order from you, but I did get myself a bokashi bucket and used it in winter (in summer it’s easier to use the compost heap directly – and I’m quite sure a really well set up compost heap eventually achieves the same qualities as bokashi).
Unless you read dutch there’s not much point in adding me to your blogroll :).
I’d find it hard to explain why I like some blogs and not others, but I always enjoy following yours!

Hey there Al. I have you RSS’d to my ‘Google Reader’and read you regularly. I am a bit of a rogue however, and have chosen to go ‘anti-establishment’ by using a regular five gallon bucket, brewing my own Activated EM-1 and making my own Bokashi. Yes, yes, I know I’m fringe, but I have been so all my life. 😉

If you want to grow food successfully in containers, nurturing soil life can make a huge difference. Worm compost, for example, is full of microbes and life. Add it to your containers and you will get more vigorous growth, and far fewer pest and disease problems. Discovering this, was the biggest turning point in my growing (more important, even, than self watering containers), transforming sporadic successes into something more consistent.

Why is soil life important?

Healthy organic soil in the natural world supports a web of life including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes as well as larger creatures like worms and slugs. These organisms play a vital role in the life of plants. They break down organic matter to make the nutrients available for plant roots. They condition the soil and create air spaces and tunnels in it – improving aeration and drainage. And they compete with other more harmful organisms in the soil, ones that will damage your plants if left unchecked.

Soil life is complex – so the above is just my attempt to summarise some of the main benefits you can expect when you add life to your containers!

Why do you need to add life to containers?

Most commercial composts that we buy are sterilised and low in microbial life. So is municipal compost (it has to be made at hot temperatures to kill pathogens, killing much of the beneficial life, too). So if you want life in your containers – and to mimic soil in the natural world – you need to add it.

1. Worm compost

2. Homemade compost

3. Leaf mould

4. Manure

5. Bokashi

Bokashi is Japanese method of composting food quickly in a tightly sealed bucket. Benefits of bokashi are that you can add almost any food (even meat), it works quickly, can be done in a very small space, and doesn’t smell (much). The drawbacks are that you need to buy bokashi bran for it to work, and the pickled product is not as versatile as worm compost. But you can add it to the bottom of containers to add both organic matter and microorganisms.

Mix about 10 – 20% into the compost in the bottom third of a container.